Fun and Fearless Adventures with Chicken Tikka Masala

I have recently been on a huge Indian food kick.  Even though I satisfied some of my cravings at D'Guru, I really wanted to play around with some Indian flavors in my own kitchen.  During a recent trip to Trader Joe's, I picked up a jar of Masala Simmer Sauce and decided to give it a whirl.  Since Friday evening had a bit of that fall chill in the air, I thought it was a perfect night to finally give this sauce a try.

To start, I washed two cups of white rice and let the rice cooker do the rest.  I then got to work on my protein.  I took two medium-sized boneless chicken breasts and seasoned it on both sides with salt, pepper, garlic powder, cayenne and paprika.  I decided to poach the chicken breasts in a saucepan with some leftover chicken broth.  I didn't have enough chicken broth so I added a bit of leftover beef broth as well.  I figured that the beef flavor wouldn't be a big deal with all of the strong flavors of the masala sauce.

I put the chicken on the stove and while I waited for the poaching liquids to come to a boil, I got to work on the other ingredients.  I had a leftover sweet potato that I brought back from Ogunquit during our family dinner.  I sliced and then cubed half of this very large sweet potato.

I wanted to make sure that the sweet potato cooked through so I added it first to a large sauce pan with the entire masala sauce on medium heat.

I then chopped up half a large sweet onion and added that to the sauce as well.

Once the poaching liquids came to a boil, I turned the heat down as low as it could go, flipped the chicken breasts over and put a lid on the saucepan to let the chicken breasts continue cooking for about twenty minutes.  After twenty minutes, I put the chicken breasts on a cutting board and let it cool.  I roughly chopped and shredded the chicken into large chunks.

I lowered the heat on the sauce and added the chicken.  I stirred all of these ingredients together and then put a lid on the sauce to let it simmer.

While I was at Trader Joe's, I also picked up a package of frozen garlic naan.  The preparation was so simple.  I preheated the oven to 400 degrees and once the oven was at the right temperature, I put the naan straight in the oven for just a minute and a half.

While the oven was preheating, I took the time to pour myself a glass of rose.  And I enjoyed each sip until dinner was finally ready.

When I took my first bite, I was really happy with my chicken tikka masala.  There were a lot of ingredients in my masala dish and I wish there was a bit more sauce to go around to make it more like a true curry. Still, I was really happy with the dish. The chicken was moist and juicy as it sopped up all of the great masala flavors. The sweet potatoes were perfectly cooked through and added a nice sweetness to the dish.

And the garlic naan was so garlicky and delicious.  I will definitely be picking up more of this the next time I go to Trader Joe's.

Our dinner was simple but delicious.  I loved all of the great spicy Indian flavors and I definitely want to explore more Indian cuisine without the help of any simmer sauces.  But in the meantime, I thoroughly enjoyed this warm and hearty dish on Friday evening.

What great things did you cook up this weekend?